Ace T'Ken

It looks like I will be nearly the only dissenter here. I didn’t care for the game.

PROS:

• The music and sound design were completely appropriate and fit the world.
• An initially interesting story setup.
• Some of the planets have a SUPER cool premise and are a joy to explore.
• The DLC adds some much-needed (albeit mild) horror elements.

NEUTRALS:

• Achievements are implemented, but are mostly for irrelevant side activities. Do you like using a guide to figure out how to get all the achievements? Well, you will have to.

CONS:

• This is not an adventure game, this is a puzzle game first and foremost. If you are not down with figuring out hundreds of vague Dark Souls-style lore blurbs scattered all over in order to work out how to solve environmental puzzles to progress, do not get this game.
• In the same vein, if you are not down with having a loop end before you’re done exploring an area only to have to trek all the way back there and go through everything all over again in case you missed something, do not get this game. This could be partially solved by having the logs you find on a planet permanently NOT GLOW any more after you had read their chain, or maybe a ship notice letting you know there were undecyphered texts on a planet still. I had to re-tread an astounding amount of ground just to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
• When your ship directs you to a planet that you need something from, the navigation on some of them is so obtuse that I found several places I could not find again even after dozens of visits to their planets. A map or better signposting would alleviate this.
• The characters were deeply forgettable, and you are constantly inundated with dozens of gibberish alien names so unless you follow a lore guide or take notes, you’re not going to figure out who did what. And speaking of…
• The story has a veneer of “pretty good sci-fi” but is told quite poorly. You will beat the game, get the incredibly lacklustre ending that doesn’t close out the story in any way, and watch one of many lore explanation videos that will make things click into place. The fact that the lore videos have SO MANY HITS is endemic of the fact that this is a narrative poorly delivered. You will find the lore in random order. If spread over multiple sessions like I played, this will mean you will not make some absolutely needed connections.
• Many things do not make sense within the context of the world and there is no reason for them to be happening at the time except for the hand-waving “It’s a video game” excuse, which breaks immersion. Why only now is sand being moved from one planet to another at the beginning of a cycle? Why only now is one planet being broken by lava? These (and other that I can not speak about due to spoilers) are not explained - the systems have existed for ages and would have (and should have given the environments they set up) occurred before this, but because it makes for a more interesting setup, it all happens now.
• The controls are… an acquired taste at best. Look at many of the negative reviews; many state the controls as an issue. There is a reason for this, even though I did become accustomed to them over time. I swapped to a controller and it was less bad. The keyboard and mouse controls are abysmal.
• I played the final build after the DLC came out, and even this far in development, I had some severe bugs. Controls would get “stuck” and force a game restart, achievements didn’t unlock correctly, etc.
• I wound up quitting because I didn’t know what to do next and didn’t care to watch yet another video to figure it out. There were hundreds of text logs that may or may not have been useful, and no idea how to find what was missing to help me progress without consulting guides, and it became too much. I eventually realized that I was just throwing time into a hole with nothing to show for it. It genuinely felt like it wanted me to give up and I couldn’t help but oblige. I just… stopped. I hated it. I kept doing the same thing over and over and eventually felt that I wasn’t enjoying anything. I hate the very concept of repetition as a game mechanic unless executed well; this wasn’t executed well.
• Despite quitting, I have seen all the endings. The real ending is legitimately nonsense and is basically an appeal to emotion while leaving the reality of the universe behind. It abandons the premise with what can only be described as a narrative hug that does essentially nothing, but presents the veneer of “feel good.” It is nothing. It is empty. Everyone but me loves it for this, and I can’t figure out why.

CONCLUSION: Meh? I really don’t understand the adoration people have for this game. It’s a mediocre non-combat roguelike with about 3 hour of content they’ve spread over 20 hours. It feels very much like a case of style over substance. This game genuinely makes me sad. I really wanted to like it, but… ugh. It feels like work.

They are? Where? I mod a Community and I’ve never seen anything that isn’t explicitly for Admins that can see them.

For my community ( !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca ) I would adore this as long as it’s available to Mods of the community the downvotes are in and Admins of that instance only. It should absolutely not be visible for normal users.

We are hit with downvotes nearly every time we post a new thread on anything even remotely controversial so it would really help us filter out people who simply downvote to bury the thread and contribute nothing whatsoever to the discussion.

Heck, we made it a rule to not downvote unless the user is not adding to the discussion, and that it should not be used as a disagree button. People generally ignore this, however.

That or just add the moderator option to disable downvotes for Communities. It would be an incredibly handy toggle.

EDIT: For an example as to why it should be implemented, see this post you’re currently viewing where I give reasons, how it’s been impacting us, some alternatives, and people hit the “fuck you” button with zero discussion and that’s all. This is the problem.

Boy do I have a treat for you.

Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!

I get it, but it doesn’t have to be just pure stats. Could have been mild ability improvements or something or maybe changed some of the effects or visual things that occurred around you. Hell, even walking speed improvement or something like a tone to help you locate hidden items.

There’s a lot they could have done considering we’re dealing with magical items! Still had a pretty good time with it overall though.

Never got into Harry Potter since I was too old. This game was really fun to just explore and I constantly felt a forward momentum. Some of the stories were good, and some were awful.

I would absolutely play a sequel just based on the well done sense of discovery alone. I just wish more of what you found was impactful instead of cosmetic.

The I.T. firm I run does this except we donate them to nonprofits.

If I may ask, what would you be running if you had to pick today?

That’s what I hoped but the FAQ doesn’t say why. All it says is that it only accepts two clients, the S-tier ones on this list.

No problem! It’s actually part of the add torrent dialogue and is extremely convenient!

Does anybody know why Tixati is banned on private trackers? I switched from it quite a while ago but they didn’t really say why.

It can and has since I started using it about 3 years ago.

Embracer still owns all the IP. It may still happen if they think it’s financially viable!

I don’t know. It’s probably apocryphal, but I just stole what he had said in the title.

You’re correct that it has been overblown in the past. That does not invalidate what is occurring, doubly so since we have scientific proof now.

You are equating “Old man yells at cloud” to “hundreds of nuclear scientists says cloud of radioactive gas is harmful and here are dozens of papers proving it.”

They are not the same thing.

Counterpoint: They used to be able to memorise the works of Homer.

Other than the precise numbers contained in the infographic, which aspect of the original post ignores the fundamentals of science? Especially now that you’ve also agreed that fewer people equals less consumption.

Double post. Ignore this.

It is not an opinion to state that fewer people equals less consumption.

Edit: Pardon, but if those of you mindlessly downvoting could explain your point instead of just being disagreeable, it would be appreciated.